Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Bigos Nestled in the Winter Vegetables section of The Soup Book is Marie-Pierre Moine's recipe for bigos , a meaty Polish stew rather than soup , according to many internet sources. I identified the recipe last weekend and thought it would be a substantial "soup" for sharing with others, but only sent out invitations yesterday afternoon. We had two guests to share our meal with and there was a substantial portion left over. The ingredients include Savoy cabbage, sauerkraut, smoked bacon, smoked Polish sausage, duck breast (you can substitute venison), a red onion, garlic, brown mushrooms, smoked paprika, a bay leaf, juniper berries, marjoram, caraway seeds, red wine and beef stock. Getting all the ingredients together was the fiddliest part of a fiddly soup. The spouse might as well have gone to Poland when trying to find the smoked sausage and sauerkraut. Or so he said. I went out yesterday evening after the rugby match had started to buy a bottle of red wine and...

Sauerkraut Soup Today I made sauerkraut soup. The ingredients included onion, bacon, kraut, canned tomatoes, stock and cream. It was very easy to make and didn't involve any blending. There was chopping, frying and heating. That's all. It wasn't bad - I had another portion for my dinner this evening - but it's not on my list of soups to make again. There were just three of us for lunch. (Tne older offspring, having left the nest, is keeping a low profile.) The spouse and the younger offspring were not too keen on the soup either. So sorry, sauerkraut soup. Not one of the better ones: sauerkraut soup Bee Buzz  The spouse treated himself to The Complete Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht. I mention it only because there it contains an item on escaping from killer bees! The main elements of the advice are to run away and not to jump into any body of water - "the bees are likely to be waiting for you when you surfa...